Stephen Houraghan here at BrandMasterAcademy.com
and in this video you're going to learn about the elements of a brand positioning strategy
specifically the three core building blocks that you need to build an effective brand positioning
strategy
now i've covered brand positioning a couple of times already in a couple of different videos so
if you haven't seen them go and check them out and it does break down what brand positioning is what
you need to know about it why it's important but in this video i'm going to break down
the elements within the brand positioning strategy and i'm going to go through each and every one and
why they're important but it is important for each and every one that you do take the
time there are only three critical elements that go in to the brand positioning strategy
but each and every one of them requires a bit of finesse and a bit of time to develop
and analyze and research so once you know what the critical elements are then you can take the time
and go through and do that research and it really does take a lot of research it really does take a
lot of finessing to get this right but it is one of the most critical steps in building a brand
strategy so you do need to take that time critical element number one is your audience persona now no
doubt you'll be familiar with this term whether it's audience persona buyer persona buyer avatar
they're all one in the same thing it's about knowing who your audience is and what we need
to do and without our entire positioning strategy the end goal here is to understand the marketplace
understand our audience and the choices that they have so really in order to understand
the choices that they have and how our audience feels about those choices we really need to
understand who they are on an intimate level and that's what the audience persona is all about it's
all about understanding who they are now when they go into the marketplace for whatever it is that
they're looking for whatever problem they're trying to solve they're going to have a lot
of choices out there already in the marketplace and when we look at who our audience is and the
choices that they have out there it's critical for us to understand how they feel about it how they
feel about the marketplace how they feel about the choices that they have out there and how they feel
about the problem that they have and the emotions connected to that problem now no matter what
industry you're in chances are your audience has a lot of choices within the market but no matter how
many choices they have there's always something that a brand can do differently whether it's to
do something more simply more comprehensive faster cheaper whatever the difference might be there's
always a way for a brand to differentiate themselves and to do something different
for their audience the the key with defining what that difference is going to be is to understand
who the audience is understand who the person is and the problems that they go through because
the more you understand their problems the more intimately you understand their problems and how
they feel about those problems the more refined you're going to be able to make your position in
the market the more refined you're going to be able to develop that differentiator to fulfill
what it is that they're struggling with what it is that they need and as i said the more intimately
you understand your audience who they are and how they feel the better your overall positioning
strategy is going to be the second critical element within your positioning strategy is
your competitive analysis now i've seen this time and again you have brand builders going into the
marketplace whether they're building their first brand or their second or third and they go into
the marketplace and they search for whatever it is they do and they look at their top 10 on google
and they look to replicate what they're doing they they try to find what they're doing well so they
can take it into their own brand and do the same and essentially that is the best way to blend in
if you try to be the same as your competitors then you're you're starting out from a disadvantage
they're already ahead of you and if you just come into the market offering the same as them
then they have you exactly where they want you because they have the edge over you because
they have the audience they have the longevity and you're just going to be a footnote you're
just going to blend in so what you need to do is you need to look at the marketplace and look
at who your competitors are to try and find the difference that you want to make compared to them
try and look for the gaps that they're leaving in the market and the best way to do that is to
step into the shoes of your audience and look at the options they have from their perspective
how do they feel about the options that they have in the market do they love the options they have
what do they love about them do they dislike something about the options that they have
what do they dislike look on review sites to find how they feel about the options that are out there
and look for the gaps in the market if you have a very good understanding of who your competition is
from their offers to their difference their idea their promise everything about them
and you also understand who your audience is and what they like what they don't like where they're
being left short then you're much better placed to find a gap in the market you're much better place
to build an overall effective positioning strategy and that brings us to the third and final critical
element of your brand positioning strategy which is your differentiator now your brand strategy is
the heart of your brand your brand positioning strategy is the heart of your brand position
and your differentiator is the heart of your brand positioning strategy so essentially your
differentiator is probably the most critical element in your entire brand strategy so you
need to look at this you need to really understand and take the time to identify
a differentiator that's going to set your brand apart because at the end of the day your brand is
about helping your business stand apart from the rest and the only way that you're going to stand
apart from the rest is to be different that is the only way that you can stand apart from them
do do something different to what they're doing whether it's delivering the service differently
providing the product differently changing the packaging changing the experience whatever it is
that you need to do differently that is going to be what sets you apart
from your competitors now as i said before this really does need a bit of time a bit of creative
thinking a bit of finesse it's not something that you do in a few minutes or even a few hours you
really need to take the time to understand your audience who they are how they're feeling about
their problems and your competitors what they're doing well what they're not doing so well and
where those gaps are and that's where you're gonna find that differentiator and when you couple all
of that information with some creative thinking and a bit of time for it to marinade and wait for
a really good idea to come up that's when you can identify a really good differentiator for your
brand so now you know the key elements of a brand positioning strategy how do you go about building
an effective one well quite simply you take each one of those elements and you build them out
one by one and then you bring them all together into your overall brand positioning strategy so in
step one you need to go and develop your audience persona now you start here with your demographics
and your psychographics your demographics are going to be the basics about who your audience
is and that's going to be things like how old they are what sex they are where they live what kind of
job title they have how much income they have and then your psychographics are more behavioral so
this is about what they like and what they dislike what their hobbies are what sports
they like what they like to do in their spare time what magazines they like to read what music they
like to listen to and that will essentially give you the foundation of who your audience is but
none of this is real detail it's not the real detail that you need to tap into how they're
feeling and what they want from your brand what kind of difference that you're going to be able
to bring to them in order to do that you really need to dig a little bit deeper into who they
are how they feel what kind of emotions they're going through what pain points they come across
not just with the pain points that your brand solves but the pain points that they have leading
up to where they're introducing your brand and the pain points they have in and around
what you do when you can tie all of those together and really tie in the emotional connections with
each one of those pain points that's when you can really start to see what they're struggling with
and what you might be able to do differently so it's really about helping them how can you
help them how can you make their lives easier better more enjoyable step number two is to
analyze your competition and the key here is to find relevant competition if you go on to
google and you type in what you do and the top 10 results are massive corporations that are
way beyond your capabilities well then they're not your most relevant competitors you need to put in
a little bit more detail into the search if that's the case maybe include your location or some very
specifics about what you do and you'll start to get closer to your most relevant competition
when you do that go and have a look at them online have a look at their website have a look at their
social media pages and opt-in to whatever lead magnet they might have and go through their email
drip system go through all of the communication that they would send you anything that your your
shared audience might experience from this brand any customer facing messaging that is what you
want to look at you want to really get under the hood of your competition and really have a look
and analyze the information that they're sending out the messages that they're sending out because
when you go through all of that you can really get a feel for what it is that they do well and what
they don't do so well and the critical key that you're looking for here is their differentiator
what is it that they do differently to the rest of the competition and what is their big idea what do
their audience love about them and what do their audience not like about them where are the gaps
there you do that through all of your competitors everybody on the the top 10 list and you can go
broader than that if you like but once you analyze all of those competitors once you get a feel
for the experience that they offer their audience and once you've gone through everything that your
shared audience can experience through them that's when you really start to understand the
competitive landscape and you'll start to identify those gaps step number three is to go and create
your differentiator now i use the word create with purpose here because it really is a game
of creative thinking i can't stress this enough you will analyze your competitors and you will
look for gaps on what they're not doing so well and where the opportunities are there but often
you really need to bring some more creative thinking to the table there there's not
often going to be a gap just sitting there waiting for you to go in and fill you might
use the gap that you identify as a starting point for what your differentiator could be but in order
to make that extraordinary in order to make that really stand out you need to put put that creative
hat on and and bring the creative thinking to the table to make that really different
so you really need to go and sit into the shoes of your audience and think about the lives that they
have and how they feel what are their lives like and what are their inconveniences what are their
frustrations annoyances and how can you take away the problems that they have through what you do
but how can you alter that experience how can you make that experience a little bit more enjoyable
if you think about the taxi industry for example there have been taxis for hundreds of years first
with horse and carriage then with cars bringing bringing a person from one place to the next for a
fee but when uber came along all they did was they altered the way in which the customer was able to
order that service and that subtle adjustment in that service was their big differentiator they
didn't change how they brought a person from one place to the next there was still a driver in the
car bringing them from one place to the next they just made their lives a little bit more convenient
in the way they delivered that so what can you do for your audience can you make their lives a
little bit more convenient can you take away their frustration somehow and once you put your creative
thinking cap on that's when you're gonna gonna be able to come up with the subtle differences that
make all the difference the subtle differences can make a really really good differentiator so
step number three is about creating your differentiator if you can shift that perspective
and put your creative thinking cap on that's when you'll find a really effective one so they are
the three core elements of a brand positioning strategy and as i said before each one of those
elements really needs the time and the finesse so take the time to understand who your audience is
take the time to understand who your competitors are and really take the time to create that
differentiator if you put your thinking cap on and you can create a difference in the marketplace
that is subtle and valuable that is when you can turn an ordinary brand into an extraordinary brand
i really hope this video helps if you liked it give it a thumbs up and hit the subscribe button
if you've got any questions at all I would be happy to answer them pop them in the box below
and I will get back to you and I'll see you in the next video
you